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Thursday, May 13, 2010

I can't believe the Weather Channel, who rolls out all of their technilogical bells & whistles for something as insignificant as a Hurricane, hasn't been producing wall-to-wall coverage of the weather's potential impact on this weekend's baseball series between TCU and Air Force. After all, the Frogs' magic number to clinch the MWC regular-season title is just one.

With a sizable chance of rain all weekend, including thunderstorms, there's a possibility that one or more games could be rescheduled, if not cancelled outright. A cancellation might not be the worst thing for TCU, as even victories against Air Force (with an RPI of 269) aren't going to improve the Frogs' postseason résumé. The exception to that, of course, is the suspended game. Game 3 of the TCU-Air Force series back in March up in Colorado Springs, you'll remember, was supsended in the Top of the 7th with the Falcons leading by a run. The Frogs have GOT to play the remainder of that game and HAVE to win it- if a win over a lowly-ranked team has the potential to harm your RPI, just think what a loss to them would do. Word on the street is that depending on the weather situation tomorrow, they may move the final 2 ½ innings of the suspended game (scheduled to begin at 5:30pm as of now) up to as early as noon.

While whoever is in charge at SEbaseball.com has projected a TCU-Texas rematch in the Super Regionals seemingly all season, Kendall Rogers over at Rivals has a different take on projecting the NCAA Regionals. He makes the case, most likely begrudgingly so due to his aggy roots, that TCU is deserving of one of the coveted Top 8 overall national seeds (which carry with them the right to host a Super Regional if you advance that far).

He's got the Frogs hosting Rice, A&M and Wichita State in the Regional. That's no walk in the park at all. If they were to prevail against that tough field, they'd then get the right to host the winner of the Los Angeles Regional in the Supers. Playing in LA will be host and #1 seed UCLA, #2 San Diego (USD, not San Diego State), #3 UC-Irvine and #4 Fresno State.

Other TCU opponents in Rogers' projected field include New Mexico as a 3-seed in Tempe, Cal State-Fullerton hosting a Regional that includes Tech as the 3-seed, Texas State as the 3-seed in Austin, OU as the 2-seed in Oxford and Oral Roberts as the 4-seed in Fayetteville.

Ever since I was a little kid, I had assumed that aggy was the most overbearingly cultish school in the entire country. From their brainwashing camp to their dumbass cheers to their robustly homosexual male cheerleaders, there’s nothing I’ve ever found enticing about College Station and its traditions. And that was before I even went down for a visit and was accosted under the guise of "proper fan behavior." Sure, A&M a fine academic institution, and you have to appreciate their dedication to the military in some respects, but then you look beyond those two things and realize that there’s nothing below the surface capable of drawing in a non-believer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my dog, but aggys REALLY love their dog.

But over the past few years, a funny thing happened. One, TCU joined the Mountain West Conference in 2005 and defeated BYU in an epic overtime game thus creating an instant rivalry despite the unfamiliariaty of the two teams. Before that game, the only knowledge of had of BYU Football was the success they experienced under Steve Young and Jim McMahon, so once we walked off the field with that victory, I knew they were going to be a serious threat to our football livelihood for the foreseeable future.

Ironically, the next summer I picked up the book Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer due to my appreciation of his works and a whole new aspect of BYU was opened up to me. I’ll be honest, I knew very little about the Mormon faith and what it stood for outside of some minimal hearsay and South Park, so you probably wouldn't consider me an expert. Not that Krakauer’s depiction would qualify as the most balanced – if you haven’t read it, the impetus of the book is the story of a man murdering his sister in law and niece after purportedly receiving a message from God to do so, so you can imagine the cheery web he weaves from there – but he uses quite a bit of historical data and liturgical references that you really just can’t spin. But, in all honesty, using their faith against them has always been one of my least favorite bits of fan behavior for our matchups with BYU because, to an outsider, all religions have their quirks, so it's a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.

My last bit of BYU awareness, though, came last year when I and a contingency of others traveled up to Provo for the massacre that was BYU/TCU 2009. Now, I’d heard all the stories – that they aren’t friendly to outsiders, that drinking wasn’t allowed, that there are no bars, etc – and, while the last two were mostly true, the whole unfriendly thing couldn’t have been more untrue as, outside of a small handful of folks including the gentleman who aggressively separated bucknasty from his posterboard flair, everyone seemed pretty grateful that we had made the trip and could not have been more welcoming. Given, all of this congeniality occurred before the game kicked off and I don’t remember much of the ensuing chaos once the rout was on so I can't vouch for everything, but all-in-all it was a great experience and I would absolutely do it again.

But, there’s one last collective stereotype that I just haven’t been able to shake even after my trip to Provo, a stereotype that is so prevalent in the south, the fact that I noticed it elsewhere must surely mean something. And that stereotype is that t

here are literally no minorities in the state of Utah.

And when I say literally no minorities, I mean, according to the latest census estimate I could find, the state of Utah is 95% white and 60% Mormon. And, while you would think that with missionaries all over the world converting non believers to their faith, surely they could’ve evened the playing field a bit, so to speak, apparently this has not come to pass. Then again, when Brigham Young himself, one of the patriarchs of the Mormon Church, openly stated, “…Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African Race? If the White man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so..." well, I suppose you sleep better at night by simply advancing the status quo.

Now, I’m not here to give a broad, sweeping statement against racism. Nor am I here to suggest that all members of the Mormon church are racist. In fact, the church received a revelation from God himself in the 1970s that discrimination was bad and needed to be eradicated from church practices. Whether you tie the action’s sincerity to the fact that this revelation coincided with an IRS threat to end the church’s tax exempt status contingent upon them ending institionalized racism is up to you. I'm just pointing out an ironic situation that's potentially not ironic at all.

But still, the school’s suspension policy over the past month in regards to successful Cougar athletes should certainly raise suspicion in the minds of even the most casual of observers as to the merit of the school’s new tolerance policies.

As a refresher, last month BYU surprisingly announced that workhorse running back Harvey Unga – maybe one of the more underappreciated backs in the country– would not be returning to school in the fall, not to mention the football team. The administration mentioned a vague reference to a violation of school policy as a reason and, while many speculate it must have had something to do with the school’s aggressive policy against pre-marital sex due to Unga’s girlfriend also being suspended, no one really knows. The fact that Unga is reportedly appealing his suspension in hopes of being reinstated for his last season suggests that perhaps his case isn’t as cut and dried as it seems.

But while the Unga story made the rounds here at our very site, the story of the BYU basketball team releasing Michael Loyd, Jr. seemed to fly a little bit more under the radar.

Since I’m assuming none of you have heard of him – and I admittedly had not either until the Cougars opener in the NCAAs against Florida – Loyd was a rising star sophomore for the Cougars basketball team this past year and, along with returning senior Jimmer Fredette, likely would’ve led this year’s Cougars to the MWC Championship and another berth in the NCAAs. However, it is not to be as he was turned away from the program for non-disclosed reasons and will finish up his career elsewhere.

The story of a successful athletic program releasing a major contributor or two is usually big news, but this one should go beyond that when you consider the ethnic backgrounds of the players and the school in question. Unga, if you couldn’t tell by his name, is of some Pacific descent – I’m honestly not completely sure – and Loyd is African American. Once is an outlier, twice could be the start of an epidemic.

But before you start accusing me of being a rabble rouser who’s trying to put a racist spin on a coincidental situation, consider this – who are BYU’s most beloved athletes in recent years? John Beck, Austin Collie, Max Hall, Jimmer Fredette, Dennis Pitta… the list goes on. What do they all have in common? Other than the fact that none of them will make it at the next level outside of Collie, they’re all white dudes. And while I’m not sure that Loyd, Jr ever would’ve become a true superstar for the basketball team – although his 27 points against Florida in the opening round sure looked like a precursor – what if he did? What if he came out on fire next year and upstaged Fredette, maybe the greatest basketball player in BYU history, the guy who the Cougars scheduled an out of conference game against Vermont in his hometown in upstate New York - yes, I know - just so he could play for the home crowd? And Unga could CERTAINLY be viewed as one of the most prolific running backs in BYU history. In fact, had he been able to play this year, he likely would’ve become the school’s all time career yardage leader. Could this fact, coupled with the church’s history with race relations, have created some underlying pressure on the athletic department to keep him out of the BYU pantheon?

(For full disclosure, the man Unga trails in the career rushing yards category, Curtis Brown, is an African American, so this kind of debunks my theory a bit, but SHUT UP LEAVE ME ALONE!)

The pragmatist in me wants to take the high road here and believe that these guys openly violated some detrimental school policy and were rightfully ousted. But the sports hater side of me wants to believe this is some sort of blatant, Final Solution caliber conspiracy that will hopefully be recognized by the rest of the world and condemned. A college football stadium is a hostile environment for an opposing team. Remarks that in any other setting would be deemed unspeakable fly around as casually as the empty beer cans you fling into the visitor’s section after a touchdown. But, from what I understand from some of our own players, Lavell Edwards Stadium can be a different beast entirely. Is it possible that the BYU fanbase has alienated minorities to such an extent that they aren’t even welcome on their own campus? I guess we’ll know when we check the sidelines come October.

I got there 15 minutes early and sat on the first row first base side behind the Frogs bench. I was surprised at how laid back the team was, they were dicking around between first base and the bench, and at times looked like a little league team. I understand that Schloss wants his players to play loose and not be afraid to make mistakes, but I would have liked to see a little more focus 15 minutes before game time.

The Frogs came out flat in the first and Gerrish allowed only 2 runs despite Texas State having the bases loaded with no outs. TCU responded at the plate with 6 runs on 7 hits including a "bomb" from Pharr that was almost caught by the center fielder. After he touched home plate and headed back to the dugout, one of the players yelled at him sarcastically,"Man, you really mashed that ball, it was way outta here". The half inning was so long that Gerrish had to jog down to the bullpen and toss a few to try and stay loose...it didn't work. Texas State responded with 3 runs on 4 hits in the bottom half. To Gerrish's defense, it is really tough to wait that long between the 1st and 2nd innings to get back out there and try and find it.

I quickly got over them screwing around before the game and was impressed with the players staying attentive every at bat, every pitch, and chatting it up for their teammates, whether it be the guy at the plate or the guy on the mound.

Trent Appleby looked solid in a little over 4 innings of solid shutout relief and picked up the win. Lockwood looked great as well with 2 and a third innings allowing only one hit.

Highlights of the game:

Player of the game goes to Jantzen Witte who had a career night with his bat going 2 for 5 with 5 RBIs.

Matt Curry punished a ball to left center that was a no doubter the moment it left his bat.

Featherston lined out to left on a well hit ball in the third, and as he was jogging back to the dugout, a Texas State trash fan yelled, this isn't A&M number 12, 12th man, get off the field. Featherston looked up and simply said, FUCK YOU. This guy deserved it, he had been yelling stupid shit all game, it took every ounce of restraint for me to ignore him the whole game because he was right behind me. When Featherston came back up for his next at bat I told my brother that he was going to rope one because he was pissed, and he laced a triple to left center. Justice.